Category: SAS Support Resources

I had noticed recently that when I searched for SAS documentation on Google I wasn’t finding the SAS 9.4 documentation pages I wanted. I tweeted about it, found others had the same issue, and that SAS are working to address it. In the interim, the answer was simple of course … search using support.sas.com instead. However, I’m impatient and am used to just typing my query in the web browser address bar (e.g. sas 9.4 iomserverappender) and then clicking on the first or second link in the search results (when the search query is unique enough). It’s very fast. Finding and clicking a bookmark, waiting for the page to load, locating the search field on the page, typing in the query, clicking the submit button, waiting for the search results page to load, and clicking on the right link …. well that’s quite a bit more work! ;) [#FirstWorldProblems]

So, I’ve switched to using another method where I can keep typing my SAS 9.4 documentation search in the browser address bar AND use support.sas.com at the same time. It might even work out better than before.

I read some great SAS news this weekend. I found out there’s a new admin related forum on the SAS Communities site! If you head over to http://communities.sas.com/ and look in the list of Communities and Forums you’ll see a new header, Deployment & Administration of SAS Software, and a new forum called SAS Deployment:

“We’ve received quite a few requests for a SAS Community for SAS Administrators, and as an initial response, we’ve created this SAS Deployment Community.”

Thanks to Mark and the SAS Communities administrators for setting up this new forum.

When I read the announcement I also wondered whether the phrase “initial response” and the fact that the new forum is listed under a heading of its own, could mean we might possibly see additional forums in the future on other specific admin topics (like EG Admin, Web Admin, Security Admin etc). What do you think? From my perspective I’m just pleased there’s an admin forum. If it sees so much activity that more specific ones get created down the track that could be a bonus, but for now I’m just happy there’s a new home for admin discussions.

In addition to SAS Technical Support, there are a number of community support resources available for SAS users too. I have compiled a list below of the sites I know of that use a Q&A or discussion format where SAS users and platform administrators can post questions and review or provide answers.

SAS Discussion Forums: provided by SAS Institute and hosting a number of different forums relating to specific aspects of SAS software. This is one of my favourites – it has a high degree of activity and relevance, lots of useful questions, and answers provided by both SAS users and employees alike.

run;submit: a site dedicated to Q&A related to SAS software. It looks like a StackExchange site but, as far as I know, I don’t think it is affiliated with StackExchange (it’s not in the StackExchange sites list).

Stack Overflow (SAS tag): a collaborative Q&A site from StackExchange dedicated to programmer’s questions. This is a link to the SAS tag that filters the questions to those about SAS software.

Super User (SAS tag): a collaborative Q&A site from StackExchange dedicated to computer enthusiast’s questions. This is a link to the SAS tag which includes some questions relating to SAS software (not as many as found on Stack Overflow) mixed in with questions about Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) disk drives and I/O controllers – seems like there is a tag name clash.

All of the Q&A sites above provide RSS feeds so you can monitor them from an RSS reader (such as Google Reader) without having to keep visiting them individually.

LinkedIn members will also find many SAS software related groups with discussion boards. There are too many to list here individually, but if you are interested you will find some of them listed on my LinkedIn public profile. You can also find those groups and others by searching for LinkedIn groups using the SAS keyword.

If you are aware of any other Q&A sites for SAS users then please let me know by leaving a comment.